Penn preps for spotlight at SUSD

STOCKTON – Stockton Unified’s newly selected Interim Superintendent Julie Penn looked to her left during a recent media interview to see Superintendent Steve Lowder making a funny face at her.

Penn, 57, has been an educator for 32 years, but has never craved the spotlight – for better or for worse - that comes attached to the top job in the county’s largest school district.

Come the end of August, however, Penn will be thrust into the role of a near 38,000-student district, and it all happened so fast.

Trustees had interviewed three candidates with previous experience as school superintendents: Gary McHenry, Steven Lawrence, and Deborah Sims. Sources close to that process said board members first favored Lawrence, but had found out he had a troubled past in terms of dealing with bond measure money in Mount Diablo Unified. Stockton Unified is floating its own bond on the November ballot.

The board then moved to make a contract offer to McHenry, sources said. The sides couldn’t agree on a deal.

The board then moved to Penn, who is now in her 24th year as a counselor or administrator in Stockton Unified – currently an assistant superintendent who has risen through the ranks over the past two and half decades and had plans to retire.